Blue Ridge Acres House

The best part of this trip was visiting my old house. I lived in Harpers Ferry, WV until I was twelve. We moved to Topeka, KS in FEB. 1996. Jere and I drove out to Blue Ridge Acres, and I found the house from memory...

The yard didn't look unkept when we lived there, but the lady living there now has had cancer and hasn't been able to do much.

From the beginning, when we decided we were going to visit the areas I grew up, I started praying that whoever lived in my old house would allow us to visit the property and thought maybe they would even invite us in. There is no way I would ever suggest that I explore their house.

We talked to the woman who lives there now and asked if we could just explore the property. At first she was hesitant but then tested me with questions about the house and about when I moved. Apparently, I passed her test and she said we could come onto the property. Once we were down by the house, she said "you can come on inside."

After looking at the whole house and comparing my memories to the way it looks now, I took Jere down the mountain side to where my siblings and I would play. The creek was all dry but only because there hasn't been rain in the area for about a month.

I was elated! It was a very nostalgic moment.

Vacation...What We've Done So Far

Here are some pics since flying into Philly on Friday night/Saturday morning.

Jere behind the wheel of his first rental car. He turned 25 on Friday and rented a car at 2:30am Saturday!

This is our rental car. A Nissan Altima. It has a button to start the car! You can just keep the key in your pocket because of the RFID signal. CRAZY!

There were silos and corn all over the place, it was very fun to see farm land in the towns we were driving through. We went to a farmers market in Bird of Hand, PA (we bought some homemade bread and cin. rolls and a cookbook with easy recipes!). The scenery and landscape was really beatiful and the weather was great!

Amish people really interest me for some reason. While driving we saw an Amish man plowing with his horses. It's mind boggling to me to see that... I mean when they want to travel do they ride in their buggies? Do they break down and fly? It would be interesting to visit an Amish family and see how they live.

Real Amish Buggy.

Buggy Rides...

The next few pictures are of sweet houses that I saw while driving. I LOVE all the old houses!

This is a covered bridge we found. Jere took some pretty nice pictures.

We took a little side trip to Cunningham Falls, bu the falls were mostly dry because they haven't had much rain around this area lately. Supposedly it's supposed to rain all the rest of the week. I just love the moss and woods, it's so great to be back in the area where I grew up.



So far we have flown into Philly, driven to Bird in Hand, PA to visit the farmers market, visited Gettysburg, stopped by a state park, gone to dinner at "Cindy Dees" (a restaurant I remember from childhood) and visited Harpers Ferry in the dark. We had such a good time seeing all the scenery and spending time with each other.

I believe Jere put ALL of our pictures on FLICKR if you would like to see more.